04 March 2009

Opening Topify for smarter Twitter Notifcation

It all started with a blog post on email as a command system for web apps. Arik Framovitch liked the post and created Topify a simple web app that enables Twitter users to deal in a smarter way with the flow of email notifications coming in their inbox. Arik then offered me to help him develop this product.

We started teasing around and we have opened today the first batch of invitations to users. Topify vision is bigger, but for now it enables you to receive a smart notification from the user requesting to follow you so you can know who is that person. We provide you with enough information to decide whether you want to follow him or not (bio, number of followers/following, date he joined the service, his last message...).

Once you have decided this is a person to follow, instead of sending you to twitter to see his page and then follow him, you only have to reply to this email and send it. Then when you'll receive direct messages on your mail box, you ll be able to reply directly from there. Without having to go to the twitter site or your twitter client.

In a word we make Twitter more efficient and help you will a more real time based experience. This is probably something Twitter should have done from day 1. But we could not wait. Maybe they will do it. This will be a great news for all, because this is the way it should be.

Topify has received tremendous welcome from day 1 (read for example the great review by TheNextWeb WeboLobby and Jay Meydad). TechCrunch noticed (update: Tim Oreilly also) a different service and claims it is a copy. I am not sure we can say that although their domain is only a couple of days old and their screencast looks very very much like the one i produced. But who cares, This is what you call Instant competition on the internet.